The Difference Between “Certified” and “Approved”

ISO Compliance, Certification and Accreditation explained

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) produces thousands of standards every year covering multiple topics and disciplines. A certain group of those standards known as management system standards are designed to support organizations in delivering products and services which are higher in quality, safer, more secure, more resilient, and environmentally friendly.

These standards are well known such as ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 27001 (Information Security), ISO 14001 (Environmental), ISO 22301 (Business Continuity) and the soon to be launched ISO 45001 (Health and Safety).

Some organizations are required to implement these standards and some other to demonstrate their compliance to them. Within the industry there is a lot of “noise” about compliance, certification and accreditation, and the difference between these terms. So what do they actually indicate in reality? READ MORE